Science diplomacy
Science diplomacy describes how scientific exchanges and the cross-border collaboration of scientists or scientific organizations can perform diplomatic functions in the context of international relations. Most often this diplomacy happens as part of scientific cooperation as a means of building relationships between states and within international organizations. Science diplomacy is a set of activities in which scientific, diplomatic, and other interests overlap and in which states, international organizations and non-state actors represent themselves and their interests. It is a global phenomenon.
Science diplomacy can include formal, informal, research-based, academic or engineering exchanges. It typically involves interactions between scientists and officials involved in diplomacy. Science diplomacy’s advocates note that science diplomacy aims to address common problems. However, science diplomacy can at times reify or accentuate asymmetrical power relations, and, especially in times of international conflict, it is sometimes unclear if and how the actual policies and associated organizations can meet the expectations placed on science diplomacy.
Definitions
The concept of science diplomacy is of relatively recent origin. Attempts to define and classify practices as science diplomacy date from the beginning of the 21st century. Before the concept became popular, which happened in the West notably during the Obama administration, what might be thought of as science diplomacy initiatives were often referred to as "smart power" or "soft power". Along with e.g. economic, cultural, digital, data or para-diplomacy, science diplomacy can be understood as a subcategory of the so-called new diplomacy, as opposed to the traditional diplomacy known to date.Today, historians use the term science diplomacy retrospectively as an analytical category to examine past forms and earlier developments, while the debate on contemporary science diplomacy initiatives involves scholars who treat it as an empirical object and actors who are or have been involved in science diplomacy practices. These are often career diplomats, science counsellors/advisers, or experts to national and international decision-making bodies and to politicians. Whether scientist diplomats or diplomat scientists are more effective is an open question. Science diplomacy was and is an area of activity in which multiple actors present diverse interests and interpretations.
Thus, there exists neither a clear-cut definition nor a consensus on science diplomacy's stakeholders, instruments and activities. Science diplomacy gains its meaning from a compilation of different narratives, approaches and ideas of changing and sometimes contested relations between science and foreign policy and the evolution of diplomacy and international relations per se. In 2010, a meeting of the Royal Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science resulted in a widely used theoretical framework that describes three main types of activities:
- "Science in diplomacy": Science can provide advice to inform and support foreign policy objectives
- "Diplomacy for science": Diplomacy can facilitate international scientific cooperation
- "Science for diplomacy": Scientific cooperation can improve international relations
Recent scholarship points out that the Global South is still underrepresented in many aspects of the science diplomacy discourse. Similarly, what has been observed in traditional diplomacy likely applies to science diplomacy as well: there is still limited understanding of female networks, gendered dynamics, and practices of exclusion and inclusion in male-dominated settings.
History
Cross-border scientific negotiations on issues such as the environment, global health crises, and scientific intelligence gathering are not new concerns. The intersection of international affairs and scientific exchange has a long history. Even if not explicitly labeled as "science diplomacy" at the time, early forms were evident in the great voyages of exploration. Colonization, in particular, carried with it science-driven diplomacy and influence.An early, widespread form of science diplomacy was advisory work to governments. In 1926, Sir Frank Heath, Secretary of the UK Department of Scientific Industry, recommended the Australian Government establish the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research to support industry and facilitate international scientific liaison. The government accepted his recommendations and appointed Frank Lidgett McDougall as Scientific Liaison Officer in London in 1927.
Notable forms of science diplomacy also emerged through scientific conferences and the creation of international organizations. In the 19th century, the growing specialization of scientific disciplines led experts to hold meetings to standardize methods, practices, and nomenclature. This resulted in the formation of the International Association of Academies in 1899. European scientists also used their networks to influence discussions on the colonization of distant territories, such as during the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885. They had to navigate the dual role of advancing scientific progress while simultaneously leveraging national scientific superiority to support geopolitical expansion. After World War I, the IAA was reorganized to exclude German scientists due to their support of military actions, including the Manifesto of the Ninety-Three. The IAA's successor, the International Research Council, formed in 1919, continued to marginalize German participation. Efforts to reestablish contacts included the transformation of the IRC into the International Council of Scientific Unions in 1931. However, the onset of World War II disrupted cooperation among the scientific communities in the Global North, and meaningful collaboration was only restored in the late 1940s.After World War II, the first major science-based diplomatic initiative was the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission to stop an atomic arms race. The initiative failed, the Cold War begun, and in the 1950s the United States developed a separate program, the Atoms for Peace initiative, made famous by a conference held at the UN office at Geneva in 1955. Most importantly, the Atoms for Peace initiative provided the basis for the founding of the International Atomic Energy Agency in 1957. The IAEA engaged quickly in the promotion of science diplomacy initiatives. Its function has been and is to encourage cooperation while providing safeguards of nuclear technologies.
However, the United States was not the only country actively pursuing diplomatic initiatives in science. Atoms for Peace and the 1954 Castle Bravo thermonuclear weapons test contributed to Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs intensifying its diplomatic activities on nuclear issues as part of a wider range of science-related activities, including initiating a science attaché program in 1954 and creating a dedicated Science Division in 1958.
The Cold War involved the development of strategic scientific relations as a way to promote cooperation to the extent that it could hedge against diplomatic failures and reduce the potential for conflict, with hegemonic interests informing science diplomacy practices. Collaborations linked the two Cold War blocs when official diplomatic connections were stalled. However, scientific exchange also offered an opportunity for intelligence gathering, including by the United States in Western Europe. Cold War science diplomacy was often to mediate the circulation of knowledge and materials, but also to create or rebuild exchange: In 1961, John F. Kennedy established a science and technology cooperation agreement with Japan following appeals to repair the "broken dialogue" between the two countries' intellectual communities. The agreement helped round out a tenuous relationship at the time rooted only in security concerns. Yet, even in the immediate post-World War II period, there were examples of US-Japan exchange, such as in the co-production and cooperation between Japanese scientists and American science administrators in the founding of the Science Council of Japan.
The emergence of Cold War power blocs also saw science and technology leveraged as tools for peacefully influencing other nations, particularly in areas like space exploration, geography, and the development of fission reactors. Technical assistance programs flourished, targeting the so-called "Third World", economically developing countries, and potential strategic allies.. For example, Sino-Hungarian cooperation in geophysics developed amidst the radicalization of Chinese politics and the increasing tensions between the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China following 1956. These collaborations often reflected broader geopolitical shifts, with scientific exchanges serving as both a symbol of ideological alignment and a means of fostering international influence.
Developing countries also engaged in science diplomacy as part of cross-bloc competition, such as the People’s Republic of China using everything from the development of new flood control techniques in the 1950s to the launch of its first artificial satellite in 1970 as part of its “people’s diplomacy” strategies. Such science-related outreach was an important part of China’s foreign relations during the decades before its entry into the United Nations in 1971 and accompanying rapid expansion in its normalized diplomatic relations with other countries. Henry Kissinger requested, and took, several science initiatives to his talks with China. Scientists featured prominently in the early exchanges and initiatives that were a part of the Sino-American rapprochement process leading to normalization of relations in 1979. Exchanges related to science and technology were explicitly mentioned in the Shanghai Communiqué. The increasing participation of recently independent, de-colonizing countries in international technoscientific affairs illustrate fundamental but yet underexplored transitions in international affairs during and since the 1970s.